1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management apparatus and management method required to manipulate (for example, to acquire, deliver, delete, and so forth), from a remote place, various setting values of an application program or data (to be generally referred to as an application hereinafter) installed in at least one network device connected to a network, a management system, and a network device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a management apparatus at a remote place can manipulate setting values of an application installed in a network device using communication protocols of a Web service and the like.
For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2010-198598, an information delivery apparatus sends application setting information, which describes setting values of an application installed in a network device, to the network device. Upon reception of the application setting information from the information delivery apparatus, an application setting/receiving module of the network device requests the application, which is running on the network device, to reflect the setting information. The application reflects the application setting information received from the application setting/receiving module to itself.
As another example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-252537 provides a Web service interface providing method. In this method, a proxy module called a service surrogate is set between a client and application, and the client and application communicate with each other via the service surrogate. The service surrogate initializes itself using separately prepared metadata so as to communicate with the application. By initializing the service surrogate using different metadata for respective applications, the client can manipulate setting values of various applications.
However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-198598, in order to allow the information delivery apparatus to manipulate setting values of the application, the application has to be configured to receive the application setting information from the application setting/receiving module.
Also, with the method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-252537, the application itself is required to have a communication interface with the service surrogate for the purpose of setting value manipulation.
However, on the market, there are many applications, which are not configured to receive the application setting information from the application setting/receiving module, and do not have any communication function for setting value manipulation.